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Anyone heard how long Barre will be out? I saw him with a cast on his wrist the last couple of games.

There really is no need to have that large of a gap. IMO they should move up the start of the playoffs. Have the semifinals on New Year's Day with the Championship the week after. They can then open up the portal the day after. That way there isn't all these problems with the portal being open when the season is still ongoing.

I would actually like to see us pressure the ball less this game. Trapping and then being late to rotate has been what has led to those easy baskets where someone cuts to the basket or is in the weak corner for an open 3. We are the more athletic team. I feel if we force them to beat us 1 on 1 they will struggle. Their recipe to beat is by shooting 40%+ from 3 while limiting turnovers. Let's instead focus on running them off the 3-pt line and have to settle for contested 2s.

They had insane shooting performances because in large part we allowed them high percentage opportunities. In basketball you want to limit uncontested 3s and 2s at that basket. We did neither of those. Yale and Murray St. capitalized as great offenses do. Both offense and defense matter in basketball. You seem to only look at the offensive numbers and pretend defense doesn't matter. I'm sure if you tried talking this nonsense to Groce he would very much disagree about the level of our defensive play in those games. That can be seen by how he changed the lineup after the Murray St. in an effort to sacrifice some offense for better defensive play. At the end of the day we played as good as we reasonably could offensively against Yale and Murray St. but it wasn't enough as we had too many breakdowns defensively. If we had a hand in their face when they were shooting those 3s they wouldn't have shot those high percentages.

The 8 made grades!!

Divide that by two one more time. If we need four , why can't we just pair up the champion of each P4 conference? BTW, was anyone able to watch all three hours of GameDay yesterday? I turned it on with an hour and a half to go and the dumbbells on the show were trying to guess the weight of dumbbells. I turned it off knowing the last 90 minutes were only going to get worse.

Getting bodies for the sake of bodies is the Arth Approach. It’s proven that you go 1-11 or 0-12 that way, and when those players hit the portal, no one picks them up and it kills your graduation compliance numbers.

Akron is the #2 scoring offense in the country, behind only Georgia. Miami is #7.

At Akron, Groce has won @ Kent, Athens, and Oxford. He's won MAC tournaments over unranked MAC teams. He didn't upset Buffalo during their golden age. His signature win is probably the 2022 MAC tournament win over Toledo in the semis. Beating an undefeated Miami who has some poll #s at Oxford will be a tall order for Groce.

We didn't watch the same games then. Not sure how putting up 94 and 100 respectively in those losses is "pissing down our legs." And don't give me the "Well we gave up 97 and 115 pts in those games," counterargument because both opponents simply had insane shooting performances. Akron is not defensively worse than the majority of teams Yale & Murray State have played, yet neither team has duplicated the shooting performance they each had vs. Akron. Could the defense have been better? Of course. Did we pee down our leg in those games? No. Pissing down our leg would've been shooting 15% from 3, putting up 65 pts, and losing by 30. Easy. Akron is deeper, more athletic, will create full court havoc defensively, and can score at will in a multitude of ways. Here are the stats and results from each of Akron & Miami's latest DI game... Akron vs. EMU 55% FG 17% 3P 7 Steals 22 Assists 8 Turnovers 93 points in a 21 point win Miami vs. BG 55% FG 48% 3P (was over 60% in the first half) 6 Steals 16 Assists 16 Turnovers 93 points in a 10 pt win (BG shot 23% from 3P making 5 total 3P in the game; I think they were at 10% 3P% in the 1st half) Without Ipsaro, BG exposed Miami's inability to handle pressure, especially full court pressure. Akron may not be great at 3P defense, but they are fantastic at full court pressure and trapping around the halfcourt line. In addition, I'd be shocked if Miami shot 60% from 3P again in any half vs. us. If they do, hats off. For as good as Miami's offense has been, they've scored under 80 points 3x, under 90 points an additional 4x, and a 5th game would've been under 90 if it wasn't for OT. Akron's quantities with the same thresholds: 1 game under 80 (79 @ Purdue), an additional 2 games under 90 (85 vs. JMU and 88 @ Tulane). Let's also keep in mind Miami's performances have come against one of the weakest OOC schedules in the country. The only way we aren't in this game is if there's a lid on Akron's basket and Miami shoots 50%+ from 3P.

How about a push to move to 8 teams? That also gets rid of the byes. Or maybe 4.

I'm betting we see a push soon to move to 16 teams. Teams with first round byes are now 1-7 over the last two seasons. Some coaches have started to talk about the difficulty of so much time off.

Well, I thought the same for a minute. But then, I thought "they could just travel to local schools and get more players that way". I could see budget affecting our ability to get quality players but not so much affecting the number of players. But I'm sure our budget doesn't help matters at all either.

I've never been there but it looks like it would be tough to shoot there, based on how it looks on TV. It reminds me of the ballrooms that some of the early season tournaments are held in, just bigger.

Sight lines at Millett Hall are brutal.

I agree, it just stinks that it's so early in the conference schedule.

Probably has to do with the lack of budget for visiting high schools

This is how I'm feeling as well. We've been able to run up the score on the cupcakes we've faced, but pissed down our legs against the 2 quality mid-majors we've faced. Mainly due to being out of position defensively. I'm hopeful we can turn it around, but on the road against a quality opponent this will likely be our toughest test in MAC play. History shows no MAC team has gone undefeated in conference play since 1958. If I had to pick a game on the conference schedule that we're most likely to lose it would be this one.

It’s a new year. We will be fine!

I've been worrying about Miami's 3-point shooting (and our lack of 3-point defense) for several days now. Someone please tell me why we're gonna be okay in this game. 😆

Personally, I would not. I'm petty like that. I met the kid very nice kid i wish him nothing but blessings and success but he chose the road he wanted to take and that was to chase the dollar signs. First to Bowlong Green, remember. He couldn't get out fast enough, no fault to him... i just would not take him make nor do i think there is any way he would want to come back after being at purdue. sometimes you have to live by your decisions. Had he stayed he may have gotten more money and more experience and went somewhere to play consequences to your decisions. not all about chasing the fast cash

We need DL help and I think he’s a borderline all conference player. I’d take him back.

Lane Kiffin is a loser. This is the best playoff ever. The favorite to win the national championship is Indiana, a school that has the most losses in college football history. How about this December/January madness!

All this talk the prior few months about how only 2-3 teams have a chance, meanwhile only 1 of the 4 teams in semi-finals has won a title this century (Miami 2021). Ole Miss last won a title in 1960. Oregon and Indiana have never won a national championship.

Agree it's a rough start for UMass, but I wouldn't completely write them off just yet, although an 0-3 start to the MAC season (BG next) is very possible. Problem with UMass -- like any team switching leagues (remember Akron from the Mid-Con to the MAC???) -- is adapting to the style of play, particularly against the elite teams. Simply put, like most MAC teams not named Akron, Miami, or Toledo, UMass does not have enough shooters on their roster. They will either have to lock teams up defensively, or mug teams inside to have a chance most nights. It will take them awhile to adapt. This year? Next year? Who knows. Martin is definitely old school. But I don't think he's completely over the hill. Let's see what this team looks like come February. Note: Buffalo and Kent are teams that seem to be transitioning towards Akron's style of play with more shooters on the floor. Like UMass, we'll see what those teams look like in February.